Learning in the Delta: A New Teacher's Adventures

Saturday, December 09, 2006

The past semester teaching was not what I wanted. It started out by pulling all-nighters almost every week with no real positive results; during the transition between the first and second 9 weeks, I caught the flu and a stomach virus – the combination of the two, thrown in with my general lack of enthusiasm to be in a room with 30 kids who (I thought) could not do anything that I put forward, were all enough to keep me out sick for a total of almost three weeks. To close up the semester, this past week I was evaluated and told to wear socks. I n short, it was a long, sickening, and painful 4 months.
I am not writing this to imply that I regret the experience. When I actually muster up the strength to pull myself up and out of the emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that is my life, I can easily say how proud I am of myself, and how glad I am that I took this job. I don’t feel like I am saving these kids – in fact, sometimes I feel more like the disease than the cure – but, I do believe that I am helping. Being here, showing these kids that life outside the Delta exists, that people outside the Delta care…maybe something can change, and change for the better. I don’t want to teach the students that my life is the one to choose, or that their life is not worth choosing – truth be told, there’s something oddly beautiful about what these kids have. I just want to show them that there is more, a variety of choices and lives. If they can understand all of the possibility in the world, and still choose to live in Indianola and work at Pate’s Automobile Shop – wonderful. All I am hoping for is that I can help them broaden their view just a little bit.
Of course, I want to teach them math, too. I thought this would be a piece of cake next to my lofty goal of “expanding horizons”. What I’ve found, though, is that half the time I am trying to inspire them to learn math, I am incorporating the broader view of the world. Constantly I catch myself talking about what a person can have if he/she has an education. There are so many things that I want these kids to get excites to about, to think about, to argue with me about… but, I can’t figure it out. Now, if I catch myself starting some speech or story to inspire a thirst for knowledge, I have the tendency to cut myself off. It’s not that I’m giving up, but I am learning that I need to expand my own horizons – the things that inspire me are not the things that inspire these kids.
What sorts of things DO inspire these kids? Family, God, Laughter, Money, Music, Dancing…After I returned from my sick leave, a small group of students started coming into my class during their Activity Period (my Planning Period), and they opened me up to the things they wished for, the things I represented, and new ways of making what I represented coincide with the things they wished for. For example, a young girl comes into my room every day and asks for a hug, asks about what my friends are like, what we do together, the types of music we listen to, etc. She is fascinated by the relationships that I have with people my own age. After some weeks of coming into my room, she told me a story about going into Taco Bell and seeing a group of white girls from the Academy, and my student described to me how badly she wished she could go sit down with those girls and start laughing with them. She told me that white people are always having fun together, always laughing together, never talking or gossiping about someone behind that person’s back, etc. I figure that this young lady who comes into my class every day and asks about my relationships with my friends views me as one of those white girls who gets along with all of her white friends, laughs all the time, and is always happy. This is a very touchy subject for me to approach with my students, but one that I want to get closer to. As time goes by, my rapport and relationships deepen, allowing for more understanding of which I am, who they are, and how we relate to each other.
As this first semester ends, and I look forward to the beginning of the next, I am expanding my views to try and include seeing things, not only as I am inclined to view them – but, as my students view them as well.